Protein engineering for bioenergy and biomass-based chemicals

The conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals faces substantial challenges if it is to be done on a large scale, in a sustainable manner, and at reasonable cost. Some of these challenges can be addressed through protein engineering technologies, for example by improving biomass-processing enzymes or by manipulating the activities and substrate specificity of enzymes in metabolic pathways. Recent highlights include structure-guided chimera design to improve the properties of cellulases, the engineering of synthetic scaffold proteins to enhance metabolic flux, and the broadening of substrate specificity to co-opt metabolic pathways to the production of long-chain branched alcohols.